Babies in detention — but only for evening classes

Press, 16 August 1980, Page 15

Babies in detention — but only for evening classes

Story by

GARRY ARTHUR

Photographs by DAVID ALEXANDER

“How ; are ya, my man?” says the Maori youth to the newly bathed and powdered baby, thrust into his arms by his neighbour. “Whafd you have for dinner

The baby gurgles and cranes his head back at the boy who had passed him on.

“Sing him one of your Maori chants,” suggests another,; but the young man calls a friend over, and hands the bundle on a Second time. “Hey, it’s not a < sack' of spuds,” he. warns, already an i expert after his few seconds as babyriiolder. The baby has had a confusing evening ' — undressed by one youth, soaped and flannelled by another, . powdered and dressed ' by a third, then passed around the room, to be . hefted, cuddled, and discussed by all and sundry. "

It was not the only baby visiting the Rolleston Detention Centre' that Sunday evening. Several other mothers agreed to the Plunket Society’s request

to bring their babies along and let the young prisoners handle and play with ■them. “Mothers are a bit apprehensive at first,” says Linda Roberts, the Plunket nurse, “but usually they’re J quite willing to come out again. One couple are here tonight with the second baby they’ve brought out." It is not for the babies’ benefit, although they seem to enjoy it; it is to give these wayward youths some practice at being parents. Some of them are parents already, and others

are "expecting.” “His missus is pregnant," says one youth, pointing with his elbow at the one sitting beside him at the baby-changing table. The prospective father looks no more than 15, but says he is nearly 18. (The 35 detainees — or trainees as the superintendent calls them — range in age from 16 to 20.) He says his girl is. -due to have a baby early in November. He plans to marry her when he gets out of the detention centre. “Parenting" evenings

are a really good thing, in his view. “It teaches a guy what he needs to know in the future,” he says. “It’s good practice.” “They pretend they don’t like it,” says Sister Maria O’Connell, one of the Rolleston chaplains. “But' they’re great — they’re really good with babies.” Nurse Roberts agrees. “They’re really quite soft,” she says. The almost fatherly grins on the boys’ faces bear that out. “I undressed him, eh?”

said one detainee proudly. “It was pretty spooky — I thought I’d break an arm or something. Yeah, I’ve held a baby : before..,, My big,brothers got onp,. eh?” • ■C With a ; 'high incidence of unhappy and. unsatisfactory family backgrounds, the chances are that many of the young men at Rolleston might repeat the pattern in their own lives. Breaking that circle of behaviour is one

of the things which the family life programme is designed to do. Many of the young men at-Rolleston have not had much family life themselves. “Some of the boys have had a terrible time,” says Anne Marshall, presi». dent of C.0.P.E., the coordinating . committee which brings the parents and babies- to the detention centre. She . came across one youth who had had no fewer- than nine different foster mothers. It was clear that he hated women, and Mrs Marshall could see why.

She has been visiting Rolleston for more than four years, and if she ever had any shyness about discussing motherhood with young detainees, she certainly has none now. She has breast-fed her baby in front of them, and once even gave a curious boy a spoonful of mother’s milk to try. He didn’t like it.

. While showing a film about breast-feeding to the present group she informed them that when she tried sunning her breasts on the back doorstep in the recommended way, a strange man came up the path and surprised her. '

•: It was the only thing that made the detainees -laugh ‘during the whole film. They took it remark-. ably matter-of-factly, which seemed to say something about the rapport which the “breastfeeding ladies”, as they have been called, manage to achieve.

Rolleston Detention Centre has a strict regime, but Superintendent K. L. Langley, takes seriously his department’s policy that every good influence should be brought to bear on the youths while .they are imprisoned. “I certainly think they benefit from this programme," he says. “It’s all part of an experience towards parenthood > — what you and I could have done with before we got married ... I look back to when I was a similar age, and I know I could have benefited from it.”

Eleven Sunday nights — about the length of the average time served at Rolleston — are taken up with the family life programme. The early childhood sessions go on for four weeks. On the first night the young men are shown a film about deprived children and discuss the question of providing adequate care. Then comes the care of a young baby and the support available in the community.

At the third session playcentre and kindergarten people bring along

building blocks, go-karts, playdough, and other equipment for pre-school-ers, and the young men learn — by playing with the stuff themselves — that the toys and activities have specific purposes in developing a child’s muscles and skills..

“What we are hoping,” says Ann Edmundson, of tlie Playcentre Association, “is that if they get in a situation where they are caring for a young child, they will know about the playcentre and what it does,' and will support their wife or girlfriend

and encourage her to take the child along.” On the fourth Sunday they show a film about birth, and talk to the youths about it from their own first-hand knowledge. “Some of them' have been through a birth,” Anne Marshall says, “but there are gaps in their know* ledge.” • ! Other Sundays in the programme are devoted to tee n-age development, marriage, and family relationships. The whole programme fits in with the detention centre’s weekly group discussion programmes.

Mothers, babies and volunteer workers — even the uniformed warders standing at the back of the hall — seem to get as much enjoyment from the encounter as the detainees. On tills particular Sunday, one • young mother found that she was ' learning something too. An enthusiastic youth took a nappy out of her hands and showed her a new method of folding it